Category: Emerging Issues

Through the modern industrial age, there’s always been a push-and-pull between the utility of our innovations and the risks they often inadvertently create. In the 70’s, we discovered the synthetic pesticide that was so effectively combating typhus and malaria, DDT, was causing breast cancer and impairing neurological development in babies. In the 80’s and 90’s, the CFCs that we used as aerosol propellants and refrigerant turned out to be damaging to the ozone layer.

Recently, it’s gotten more complicated: We still enjoy the increased power …

As coastal erosion continues to shrink beaches, the sand that remains has become ever more valuable; and in Maine, a battle over the beach has reached the state’s highest court.

In most coastal states, the intertidal land — (the land subject to the ebb and flow of the tides) — is owned by the state in trust for the public under the public trust doctrine. Thus, the public is generally entitled to use the intertidal zone for recreational purposes. Maine is one of only a few …

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for licensing the companies that charter private space transportation. To issue a license for commercial space travel, the FAA is required under the National Environmental Policy Act to assess how their licensees’ activities may impact the environment.

FAA policy requires before issuing a license for space travel that the agency assess 14 separate categories, including noise, coastal resources, and land use, for potential environmental impact. In addition to this environmental review, the FAA also assesses how commercial space …

Recently, there’s been much discussion about the potential benefits that artificial intelligence can bring to climate change regulation. 

For example, advanced technology, such as satellite data, is being used to identify large emission events — (see ELM’s recent methane rule finalization coverage here and ELM’s previous AI coverage here). AI also is being used to monitor rising sea levels along the United States’ coastlines — (see ELM’s previous sea level coverage here). 

Less consideration, however, has been given to the potential adverse impacts …

Regulations — and executive agencies’ interpretation of those regulations — can make or break companies, and even entire industries.  For decades now, the judiciary’s approach to administrative review, found in the landmark 1984 case Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, largely deferred to government agencies’ interpretation of their governing statutes on the grounds that such agencies were best positioned to interpret those statutes. “Chevron deference” became a foundational framework for administrative law.  

But in recent years, critics have argued that Chevron…

On January 17, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451, an environmental-law dispute concerning fishery management in federal waters.       

The case reached the court via a petition of four commercial fishing companies challenging a federal fisheries regulation, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which provides that the National Marine Fisheries Service can require private vessels to “carry” federal observers onboard to allow for the enforcement of the agency’s regulations (federally-prescribed fishing “catch” limits being the most …